A bit from Mark Steyn:
The sexual-identity left and the Islamic imperialists have certain things in common: both dislike having to listen to opposing views, and so are ever more openly hostile to freedom of speech. Yet deep down both parties know these two surging forces of cultural evolution cannot co-exist – that the Lancashire Constabulary Transgender Unit marching behind the Forty-Four Ways to Slaughter the Infidel Study Group in the Lancashire Pride Parade is merely a passing phase: It’s as if the World and Opposite World were wedged into the same physical space like overlaid telephone area codes. One will shrink, the other will expand.
Which would you bet on? As I say here, diversity is an interim stage, and, as we already see in certain parts of London and Brussels and Malmö and Toulouse and Frankfurt and on and on, what comes after diversity is the grim uniformity of Islam. And, as I say here, in the end the brave, transgressive left will give up even their bedrock freedom – sexual identity – as they have abandoned all those older, quainter freedoms like free speech. In the face of growing Islamic hostility, men will cease to marry men, and men will cease to be women, and policemen will quietly mothball the bi-cruiser.
Some years back, my father handed me a copy of Hilaire Belloc’s The Great Heresies. Given Belloc’s vigorous Catholicism, I don’t think the book ever got a large amount of interest. A lot of people probably thought when it came out, “hey, its just a Catholic mouthing off about silly heresies” and took no great notice of it. But it is, to me, one of the most important books written in the past century. It very much repays reading and after reading it, you’ll have a vastly better understanding of where we came from and why we’re in our current position. Steyn’s article got me thinking of this passage from Belloc’s book:
Strange as it may seem, there are a certain number of highly educated men, European gentlemen, who have actually joined Islam, that is, who are personal converts to Mohammedanism. I myself have known and talked to some half-dozen of them in various parts of the world, and there are a very much larger number of similar men, well instructed Europeans, who, having lost their faith in Catholicism or in some form of Protestantism in which they were brought up, feel sympathy with the Mohammedan social scheme although they do not actually join it or profess belief in its religion. We constantly meet men of this kind today among those who have travelled in the East.
The other day I was listening to a show on Catholic radio and the host was discussing a conversation he had had with a German some while back. The gist of it was that the host explained to the German that his country fell for Nazism – and is now being swamped by Islamism – because it gave up it’s ancestral, Christian faith and thus could not stand against new faiths, of whatever sort. The host contrasted Germany with Poland and pointed out that Poland remained Catholic – strongly so – and so was able to endure a century of division and foreign rule and then, in turn, rejected and fought against Nazism and Communism…and today still stands firm against Muslim inroads.
The problem, you see, isn’t that Muslims are moving to Europe – nor that non-Americans are moving to the United States – but that the people of Europe (or, more accurately, their leaders) have lost their faith and thus do not convert the new arrivals. It wouldn’t matter in the least if the primary ethnic group of the United States in 2117 were Nigerian provided that said people had been fully converted to the American ideal. Just as it wouldn’t matter if in 2117 the primary ethnic group of Europe were Arab provided said people had been converted to the European ideal. The slight difference is that the American ideal is embodied in the Declaration of Independence while the European ideal is embodied in Christianity – most specifically Catholicism, but at least as long as it is Christian, it is European.
As Belloc noted – and the book was written more than 80 years ago – there were already highly educated, but faithless, Europeans who were already in line with Islam. Not so much in believing the whole run of Islamic belief, but in believing that it was superior to their ancestral beliefs and was better suited to the human condition. But the catch – and they didn’t see it then, or now – is that the way Europe is only happens because it is Christian. Had the Arian heresy triumphed in the 4th century, then Europe would not have become what it became. Arianism was very much like Islam in that it denied the ultimate divinity of Christ and thus, had it won, European civilization today would likely be very much like Muslim civilization is (my bet is that Islam never would have arisen, as such: Mohammed would have just become an Arian). But Europe in the 4th century remained Catholic Christian and so developed along the lines we know from history – but now Europe is no longer Catholic Christian (my guess is that, overall, no more than 20% of the European population is Christian) and so it has nothing to fight against Islam with…nothing to fight for, that is. And given a choice, I believe the European (and American) Ruling Class would much prefer a triumphant Islam to a revived Christianity.
Part of this is because Islam does have the appeal of simplicity. Remember, it’s primary disagreement with Christian dogma is the divinity of Christ. You’ll not find anyone write or speak with more respect and reverence for Christ (and his mother) than a Muslim…but he denies that Christ is God. Given that Christ isn’t God in the Muslim view, there’s no need for all those sacraments which, especially, the Catholic Church maintains. You don’t need a priest. You can pray anywhere (there are Mosques, of course, but as you can easily see just by looking, a Muslim can discharge his religious duties anywhere quite simply). Islam seems clean and easy – it is certainly much easier to understand than Christian dogmas such as a the Trinity. Additionally, most modern, Progressive ideologies firmly reject the idea of free will – and Islam is very much about all being God’s will while humans only do what they were ordained to do. If the Progressive West is to have a religion, Islam is more likely to be it than anything else.
There would be not much to it, you see? I can easily see our radical feminists adopting the burka in order to free themselves from the “male gaze”. Official Muslim condemnation of usury would be seen as a nice anti-Capitalist touch (it isn’t actually true that interest isn’t charged in Islam, by the way). Your basic Ruling Class person won’t have to give up much to convert to Islam. They’d still be rich and in charge. True, there would be no more topless women on European beaches and popular culture would be highly constrained, but that wouldn’t prevent a rich person from indulging in all sorts of oddities behind the walls of his secured palace; nor in setting aside special areas where sin is abundantly available, but only for the select few (the Ruling Class doesn’t really like the idea that the unwashed masses are currently able to get into swank areas, anyway). It would go badly for open homosexuality – but in the hierarchy of victim status, Muslim trumps gay anyways; and it’s not like you couldn’t still be gay, it would be just that the annual Pride parade would be cancelled.
If you wonder why our Ruling Class, especially in Europe, appears utterly blind to the threat, look no further than the fact that they have little to fear from it. It isn’t their way of life that will be radically altered, but yours. And they are quite ok with that. You might like your Christianity and your Constitution, but such things are entirely meaningless to the Ruling Class. They like power and wealth and are determined to keep it – and if that means importing a new set of voters and eventually joining them, they won’t bat an eye at it. This is why it is crucial that we concentrate on what is most important, and not allow ourselves to get side-tracked into blind alleys. It isn’t, ultimately, the Muslim refugee who is your worry, but a Ruling Class that doesn’t like you.
This makes the election last year stand out all the more starkly. Trump, warts and all, is an American patriot. He loves his country – as it is (or, more accurately, as it was a few decades back). He wants to make it that way, again – strong, dynamic, filled with reverence for what we’ve done and determination to outdo the past. I don’t know if Trump knows the ultimate wellsprings of his nation’s greatness, but he certainly understands that those who have been running the show largely reject whatever it is that made America great. He instinctively knows that if we give up what we are, we give up all we have. Something else will replace it – because a vacuum of any type will always eventually get filled. Getting after those who are in charge thus becomes the primary effort of everyone who cares to save the nation. And anyone, of whatever alleged political complexion, who doesn’t want to get after those in charge has effectively ranged himself on the other side.
The Great Turning Point is this: that we’ll either chase the Ruling Class from power, or they’ll hand us over, bound hand and foot, to a successor civilization. Back in the 20th century, they wanted to hand us over to Socialist totalitarians, now they’ll just as easily hand us over to Islam. In either case, they don’t care because they are certain they’ll still remain in charge. That they might well be wrong about this is immaterial – it is what they believe (and, come what may, after the end of our civilization most of them will still be on top…just as in the various turns in other civilizations a traitorous Ruling Class still managed to ingratiate itself with the new rulers…plenty of Byzantines converted to Islam and helped run the Ottoman Empire after 1453, after all; the Russian Imperial general Brusilov became a Bolshevik; the German officer corps sold itself to Hitler for as little as 100,000 marks a year…). Getting rid of these people in charge is Job One. It is really the only job we have – and if that means sticking by Trump and just generally fighting and pushing back all the time, that is what it will have to be. It’ll be worth it, if we win.
Blogs For Victory 
It’ll be worth it, if we win.
It will be worth it even if we lose. Fighting for personal liberty and independence is always worth it even it means death. I have never understood complacency or those who subject themselves to a rule or ruler they oppose, nor have I ever understood people who cling to life.
In just my very humble opinion, I think organized religion has screwed more people up than anything else, and I say that as a firm believer in the teachings of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, I think that anytime a human being gets in-between the word of God and His flock, desire for control and personal agendas prevail, and the purity of His words and meanings become skewed. Our purpose here is not complicated, but unscrupulous people will complicate matters in order to control and that is what religion has become.
In just my very humble opinion, I think organized religion has screwed more people up than anything else
I could not agree more. I don’t know if the Left had a goal to subvert religion the way they did education, but it certainly turned out that way. My wife and I grew up in the Methodist Church and parted ways back in the early 80’s when it became clear that it was more about money than spirituality. After attending Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally in August, 2010 we were seriously thinking of giving the church another try. Then I saw the Methodist Church in a list of sponsors of the big Leftist rally in D.C in October, 2010., with their name right next to the Socialist Workers Party and the Communist Party USA. I mentioned this to good friends who were still active in the Methodist Church. They contacted their pastor, and the Methodist Church’s name magically disappeared from the list of sponsors a few days later. Sometime later we had dinner with those friends and the subject came up. Apparently the backlash was huge, and rightly so.
Too many Churches are political anymore and that’s obviously not a role they should be playing but they take their lead from Al Sharpton and the many southern Churches that Democrats like to frequent and campaign. I also take exception to the many “non denominational” churches that have popped up over the years with young, flamboyant and increasingly rich pastors who often times end up on the front pages of a tabloid magazine, and then of course we have the Churches who build shrines to themselves all the while speaking about helping the poor. Man is not a very good steward of God’s word.
Belloc once opined re: the Catholic Church:
The problem, of course, lies with the fact that people are involved. This is the commonality among all things run by people: people tend to screw up…and if you give them lots of power and/or influence, they screw up even more.
But the bottom line is that, flaws and all, it was Christianity that made Europe. Before Christianity, people might have spoken of a continent of Europe (but even that was rare), but the first time you see the word “Europeans”, it is only after Christianity was the ruling ideal of the continent. For the longest time “Christian” and “European” were pretty much interchangeable; it is hard for us to grasp that a thousand years ago from Spain to Poland, people would attend the same religious service, done in the same way, on the same day. That, also, the Christian ethic was enshrined in law and custom throughout the Continent. That while a person might be French or Italian or what have you, his patriotism was local and he thought himself more a Christian than anything else. People would move around between various States, doing services based upon their ability and their desire rather than based upon their ethnicity. Everyone who was educated was educated in Latin and so it was nothing for a German to go to Paris there to educate the Italian man who would become St. Thomas Aquinas.
The breakdown which started 500 years ago this year with Luther posting his theses on the Cathedral door has ultimately led Europe to it’s current condition…no longer Christian, and thus no longer able to remain European. Only if they recover their Christianity can they restore the European identity.
I agree with your historical premise and also agree that the future of Europe is in trouble. Nihilism, secularism, lack of moral clarity, and political correctness have all played a role in the removal of Christian principles from the European continent and the result is that the very fabric of their culture is being shredded.
This is absolutely one of the best critiques of the AGW hysteria I have ever read, with the following summary of the destructive group think surrounding this issue:
(a) people who question man-made global warming are anti-scientific fools driven by irrational agendas; (b) scientific consensus is not the product of the social and political pressures of academic life working on the minds of the career-motivated, publication-obsessed majority of scholarly mediocrities, but rather consensus is the very definition of Objective Truth; and (c) anyone who questions a scientific consensus poses a threat to the survival of democracy..
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/09/oops_climate_cultist_destroys_own_position.html#ixzz4tPRpwCBH
I think this paragraph sums up what’s wrong with our current world:
Xiuhtezcatl Martinez is a 17-year-old indigenous environmental activist in the midst of releasing his debut hip-hop album, Breaking Free and his first book, We Rise, while suing the Trump administration for their inaction on climate change.
I would like to see a mass boycott of the NFL and NBA. These over paid, pampered diva athletes have the right to voice any political position they want, but they also have the right to suffer the consequences, and considering their political posturing, and the diminishing quality of play on the field, I say thanks but no thanks. I will not be watching much NFL this year preferring instead to watch college ball, which is much better any way. Did you see the Penn State/Iowa game?
As I sit hear and watch Sen. Susan Collins (R) on CNN unintelligently discuss her position on Obamacare repeal, a scroll on the bottom of the tv reads, “support for the GOP at an all time low”.
I wonder why?
After 8 years of Obama, BLM, the Media, and the entire Democrat party picking at the scab and reopening the wound of racism, Chuck Todd just asked a panelist if Trump has a responsibility to heal the racial divide.
Wow.
Frank Cannon nails it:
……modern identity-obsessed progressivism has now become: everyone is a white supremacist, and everything is white supremacy. Racism is everywhere in every quote, in every headline, and in every policy. White people are inherently evil — unless they flash their LGBT get-out-of-privilege free card. “Hate” is unacceptable, unless you’re hating people you deem to be “haters”, in which case, it’s totally reasonable.
Gone are the days of intellectual liberalism, replaced, sadly, with social justice warrior illiberalism that traffics exclusively in immutable characteristics and perceived sociological privileges and disadvantages.
Once you understand the basis of this flawed, closed-minded ideology, DeVega’s anti-intellectual screed makes more sense. He, like many progressives, simply can’t comprehend the idea that voters of all races might appreciate Trump’s support for economic policies that benefit the working class. How could that be? After all, according to DeVega, Trump is an “overt white supremacist.”
Because progressives can’t win in the marketplace of ideas, they resort to shutting down debate and shaming via shrieking pejoratives. They employ the same strategy over and over again: declare conservative beliefs outside the realm of acceptable political discourse, then identify them personally as people of bad character.
It happened at the Emmys. It’s happening on ESPN. It’s happening everywhere. It’s the progressives’ weapon du jour.
The same week my article appeared in The Hill, Ben Shapiro, a mainstream Jewish conservative columnist, was labeled a “white supremacist” and a “Nazi”, and Ben Carson was called a “black white supremacist” by liberal starlet Chelsea Handler. Rather than refute conservative arguments or acknowledge that a diverse American people can often have a diverse set of ideas, the Left uses dehumanizing rhetoric to shame and bully in an effort to force everyday people to disassociate from those the Left wants to destroy.
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/frank-cannon/2017/09/23/salon-left-killing-democratic-party
I was reading the comments on an NRO article and realized that the rabid Left is still seething about the investigations of the Clintons. ????? Back in the 90s, when there were investigations into the Clintons, the Left started to work up a sense of outrage that has only seethed, fermented and become more toxic ever since.
When I asked a Lib, many years ago, why he HATED George W. Bush instead of just objecting to his policies, the response was that he “deserved” to be loathed because of “what you all did to Bill Clinton”. I thought that insane knee-jerk justification for irrational hatred and elaborate retribution was firmly in the past, but no, it is still alive and motivating the even-more insane hatred that motivates so many Libs.
This toxic feverswamp of imagined wrongs and seething hatreds provided an excellent breeding ground for new reasons for wild, irrational hatred, and we saw the success of that when Obama started seeding it with his administration’s promotion of “racism”.
I’m not including the riots over the unspeakable crime of income inequality and the other standard memes of the International Left—these have been staples of Leftist rabble-rousing for centuries. I am talking about the emotional volcano of utter and absolute hatred for anything identified as “the Right” and what I see as its genesis, which is the furor stirred up over the efforts to hold the Clintons accountable for their many crimes.
Today I saw an effort to compare Mueller’s Gestapo tactics against Manafort to what a drooling Lib claimed was a similar, though of course, much much worse, escalation of an investigation into Whitewater into the Lewinski affair. That is the skewed perception of the rabid Lefty. It depends on ignorance of the actual evidence of criminal wrongdoing that started with Whitewater, and it ignores the fact that Bill never stopped breaking the law even while under investigation. It basically ignores all the facts regarding the criminal activities of both Clintons. Worse, it uses the whole Clinton investigation thing to justify anything done to any Republican, no matter how blatantly wrong it might be.
It is interesting to see the trajectory of the impact of the Clintons on every aspect of America today—its politics, its culture (young girls providing oral sex because they have been told “it isn’t really sex, etc) and its very soul have all been corrupted by the presence of the Clintons in its political history. This could not have happened without a willing pool of emotionally driven malcontents looking for a focus for their irrationality, but I think this is where the nation started its shift to spiraling rage, seething HATRED, and the sense that anything is justified, no matter how awful, if it can be attributed to justice for what was done to the Clintons. The Clintons may not have created the death spiral, but they gleefully herded millions into it and and provided the shove that got them spinning into insanity. Between their contribution and that of Obama, in vilifying everyone on the Right as “racist”, we may never recover and become sane again.
You might be right about never becoming sane again and I agree with you on the Clinton’s and that our state of politics have been more and more divided since then. The left never has recovered from the proper scrutiny of Bill’s improper personal dalliances, which at the core of it is pure subjugation of women but of course you’ll never hear the feminists speak out against Bill. Debating the left is an exercise in futility because they will take any side of any issue depending on the day. They have no core, no principles, no morals, and simply are not honorable people.
You mentioned the Gestapo tactics of Mueller which is absolutely correct. But think for a minute on who those tactics are being solely applied to, and then consider that the truly criminal actions of Samantha Powers and Susan Rice’s unmasking, Hillary’s unsecured server rife with classified information, Hillary’s pay for play State Dept., her blatant deception to the FBI, and the wire tapping of the Trump campaign have received zero attention from Mueller. This is how far entrenched the left has become and it will take years to weed the garden.
You are talking about the same thing—the fact that any tactic, no matter how illegal, no matter how despicable, no matter how psychopathic, no matter how unconstitutional, no matter how intrinsically unfair, no matter how brutal, is excused by the belief that it is justified because of the way “we” treated the Clintons.
The success of the Left has been in stirring up righteous outrage at the very idea that there was any culpability on the part of either Clinton, outrage first created and then supported by the Complicit Agenda Media which have steadfastly refused to do their jobs and outline the various crimes, present the timelines, connect the dots, and in general educate Americans about the truth of the Clinton Crime Family. We never saw anything about the bank frauds, the illegal campaign contributions, the many frauds of Whitewater as the corporation sold property under onerous conditions, took back the property when payments were late, refused to refund what had been paid, and then resold the property. The various media never explained the various laws that were broken. The various media never linked the many deaths of various Whitewater participants.
No, the various media all contributed to the illusion that for some reason a massive conspiracy had been mounted to bring down an American hero, smearing him and his noble wife, blah blah blah. And this campaign worked. The fantasy that Bill (and by extension Hillary) were noble victims of a powerful cabal out to destroy them led to the hysteria of the Clinton Cult, which exists to this day.
Until this elaborate scenario was developed and promoted, while politics was often rowdy and rancorous it was still for the most part just politics, just vying for electoral victories and political power. I can’t think of a political era which depended so wholly on the conviction that any degree of hyper-emotion, any degree of visceral loathing, any degree of retribution, was justified in retaliation for the horrors inflicted on these poor victims, Bill and Hill. And it is that sense of righteous retaliation that I believe has led to the subsequent political climate we see now.
That impotent rage simmered and fermented until Obama came along and saw it as a petri dish in which he could plant his own seeds of hatred and rage, and his careful nurturing of racial divisiveness and commitment to undoing the progress made in race relations certainly had its own identity, but I think it depended to a large degree on that well of resentment which led to that well of hatred which was just looking for a way to express itself.
In the minds of the unthinking (but constantly emoting) Left, while all the things you mention are true—–…”the truly criminal actions of Samantha Powers and Susan Rice’s unmasking, Hillary’s unsecured server rife with classified information, Hillary’s pay for play State Dept., her blatant deception to the FBI, and the wire tapping of the Trump campaign…” and more—–they are OK because all those harmed by those actions deserved what they got, deserve more than they got, deserve any horrible thing that happens to them. Because of what we did to the Clintons.
It’s irrational. It’s insane. But the talent of the Left has always been to tap into the darkest elements of human thought and emotion, play on them, develop them to the exclusion of reason and rationality. My point is that they found the perfect venue in which to operate when they tapped into the passionate culthood of Clintonism, and they played it to the hilt. And I think that laid the foundation for the very expanded level of hatred we see now.
We had a lot of love for George W. Bush but we also called him out on what we thought were his mistakes, and we demanded a lot of him, a lot more than just BEING George W. Bush. It is the same thing with Trump, even more so. The administrations of these men, who were elected for the most part due to rational thought and commitment to Constitutional principles of government, are not in any way similar to the rabid culthood of the Clinton and Obama administrations, or of the ongoing influence of the Clintons and Obama even after being out of office. These people are, to the cultists, not only gods in their own right but any slight, any criticism, any observation of any defect in any of them, is considered adequate justification for any degree or level of hatred, violence and even subversion of the government.
You know the squealing of the Complicit Agenda Media about Trump’s comments on disrespecting the national anthem? The whine that his comments are proof of racism because he made them to a “mostly white” audience?
Perhaps the Loony Left could take a break from hyperventilating and finding bogeymen behind every curtain, and study a little math.
Most audiences, unless specifically targeting a specific minority, are going to be “mostly white”. Duh. That is, of course, because most of the people in the United States are white.
…..the percentage of blacks falls between 10% and 14% of the entire population….
…..The U.S. Census Bureau shows that the percentage of Hispanics rose from 9% in 1990 to 12.5% in 2000. …..
http://news.gallup.com/poll/4435/Public-Overestimates-US-Black-Hispanic-Populations.aspx
If 14% of an audience were black, and another 12.5 % were Hispanic, the audience would still be “mostly white”.
This reminds me of poor befuddled dipsh*t Brandon Marshall, of the Denver Broncos, explaining that he disrespects the national anthem because he wants people to know how hard it is to be a minority. Hey. Brandon, that’s just simple math! But yeah, show contempt for a symbol of the nation in which an undereducated emotion-driven nincompoop can make millions of dollars a year. That’s just sooooo impressive!
But these lamebrains never get called out on their stupidity.
Tim Tebow use to take a knee but his reason and cause was found to be “divisive” by the NFL so they put a stop to that. I am not sure why they are cowering now …… oh wait a minute, yes I do understand.
I also would like to know how a multi millionaire is so oppressed by this nation that they feel the need to disrespect the flag that represents the many brave men and women of all races who gave their life for the freedoms we enjoy in this country. To support a manufactured leftist narrative??? It’s shameful. Here’s the truth, the NFL is losing viewers by the day and not because of white supremacy, but because the players have become prima donna’s, the league has gone political, and the advertising is over the top. It has really become a boring product.
I also want to mention the cult of personality, which you brought up and of which the left is famous for. They want to define our support of Trump as a slavish devotion to the man, because that is what they know and how they act toward Clinton, Sanders, Warren, and Obama and all of their other “leaders”. The left are people who adulate other people and provided the right “intent” is expressed by that person, the left will follow blindly. On the other hand, conservatives only respect results, processes, and laws, regardless of the person who implements them, and this is why Trump has my support. He has rolled back the many executive orders put in place by the previous leftist dictator, he has opened up free markets, and most importantly, he is forcing Congress to do their job, unlike the previous leftist tyrant who famously proclaimed that HE had a “phone and a pen”. You know what? Kim Jung Un also rules with a pen and a phone. Maybe Obama was jealous.